In this ending, half of the epilogue was included in Chapter 30. This ending picks up right after the FBI acknowledges Rowan and the capture of Jason.

***

A week later, Carrie was released from the hospital, and sat in her bedroom staring at her VCR/DVD player.

Still bruised and bandaged, Carrie, with her arm in a sling, had struggled to bring herself to do the one thing she feared most—play back her experience at Camp Crystal Lake and re-live the nightmares she had to endure. But something told her she just had to do it.

Her face drawn with emotion, she stared at the blank blue screen on her TV for a minute, and then glanced down at the label on the tape that read “Wilson- Crystal Lake.” After taking a deep breath, she inserted the tape into the deck and pressed play.

With the blue monitor reflecting off of her eyes, she sat silent in the otherwise dark room. A moment later, Louie appeared on the tape, rapping and dancing to some G-Unit in his dorm room. Carrie just half-smiled as Jamal interrupted and yelled at Louie: “Man, will you stop fucking around! We need all this shit for later!”

“Yo man, get away from the camera, holmes,” Louie responded. “You never know who might see this...”

After that, Carrie’s own image cut in, as she started her report at camp: “This is Carrie Wilson reporting from Camp Crystal Lake, where only days ago, more bodies were discovered by local police in what has seemingly become a ritual in this small, depressed town.”

After the report, she looked on as her footage continued toward the flaming cabin. Carrie cried as soon as the footage revealed Slax’s burning body inside. She sobbed as she panicked and ran into Jamal, and then she had to pause the tape when the camera caught a glimpse of Jason.

Carrie took a deep breath and stepped back. Crying harder, she couldn’t help but stare at the image of the white hockey mask on the screen. Almost hyperventilating, she decided that she just couldn’t bring herself to watch the rest all the way through. She didn’t want to have to hear the pain and anguish of everyone who died, so she put the tape on fast forward. She slowed it down just enough so she could make out what was going on. As she suspected, her camera captured just about everything that took place that terrible night. It was almost as if Carrie was seeing it through her eyes all over again. Watching it all again made her sick in the stomach. She couldn’t get those awful images out of her head. Not of Slax burning, not of Jamal suffering, and definitely not of Kevin’s life slipping away in her arms.

The camera work was surprisingly good, considering it was a palmcorder. As she sped through the tape, there were multiple flashes from all the fire, gunshots, explosions, and death, but then one big white flash caught her eye, so she backed the tape up. She couldn’t distinctly remember it, so she backed it up to find out what it was.

The camera angle was sideways, but she could distinctly make out Kevin and Jason on the tape. That must have been when she was unconscious. She saw Kevin struggle to get to his feet, and then took off in all-out sprint, yelling “Mother fucker! Die!” There was no way she was going to pause or fast forward this. She had to know what happened. Her eyes widened with horror and her jaw dropped as she finally realized just how Kevin had saved her life. It was almost as if the image played itself in slow motion twice, once in each of her eyes. Kevin had tackled Jason off of the dock and into the electrically-charged Crystal Lake. Then the white flash came. It enveloped the entire viewing area of her camera, and then all was calm, with the sound of sizzling echoing on an otherwise black screen.

It was then that she came to and corrected the camera angle. She heard herself calling out to Kevin, and then another explosion caused a small funnel to blow out of the lake. Carrie was pale and deeply sorrowful as she just sat and stared at the screen.

Tears were streaming down her face now, and she was just about to hit the stop button, when the camera caught a glimpse of Kevin’ s shoe and she pulled him out of the lake. On the tape, Carrie burst into tears, and Carrie, watching the tape, burst into deeper tears as well.

“Oh my god!” she gasped on the tape. All Kevin mumbled was “Krista.” With tears beading up on her pretty eyelashes, Carrie simply said, “Go to her, Kevin. Go to her.” And in that instant, Kevin closed his eyes and passed away. The camera caught it all. Then everything on the tape went silent, and the picture turned to black.

It was no easier to deal with the second time around, as Carrie was balling her eyes out once more. The tape continued on in a black screen for a while, as Carrie just sat and stared, seemingly lost. Then the faint sound of approaching sirens was heard on the tape, and her attention again focused on the screen.

“It’s all over,” she heard herself say as the camera caught all the SWAT members unloading the vans in their riot gear. The camera then jolted suddenly downward. That must have been when she passed out with the paramedics. When the camera stabilized, it was again sideways, and panned the image of the medic administering an IV and bandaging her up.

Just then, the audio faded out on the tape, and the visual faded to black before coming to an abrupt halt.

Carrie, in deep sadness with tears rolling down her pretty face, glanced up at her desk, where a picture of Kevin sat tacked onto the wall. While she was in the hospital, she made her mother cut it out of an old Boston University hockey media guide and bring it to her. Kissing the picture, Carrie then clutched the crucifix she was wearing and looked up. She smiled, because she knew that Kevin, Rob, and all of her friends had gone to a better place.